The British high court has ruled against a case intended to prevent the country exporting F-35 parts which could have ended up in the hands of the Israeli Defence Force, saying it had never been a matter for the courts to rule on in the first place.
A legal battle launched in the months after the October 7 2023 attack on Israel to prevent weapon components made in the United Kingdom from potentially being exported to Israel has failed, the High Court in London finding this “acutely sensitive and political issue” is a matter for the democratically selected Parliament, not a court.
The United Kingdom is part of a multinational consortium that builds components for the Lockheed Martin F-35 and it is conceivable some of the parts made in Britain will end up in exported American planes in service with the IDF. As noted by The Guardian, a challenge by Global Legal Action Network and Al-Haq supported by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Oxfam had attempted to cut off the British contribution to the aircraft.
One of the partners in the legal bid called it “one of the most important cases ever taken in the UK”, stating the country was contributing to a genocide.
Government lawyers, in return, stated this would be detrimental to national security. The UK is ordering over 100 F-35s itself and hundreds more are being sold to NATO partners and allies further afield.
In the ruling, Lord Justice Males and Mrs Justice Steyn said:
That issue is whether it is open to the court to rule that the UK must withdraw from a specific multilateral defence collaboration which is reasonably regarded by the responsible ministers as vital to the defence of the UK and to international peace and security, because of the prospect that some UK-manufactured components will or may ultimately be supplied to Israel, and may be used in the commission of a serious violation of international humanitarian law in the conflict in Gaza.
Under our constitution that acutely sensitive and political issue is a matter for the executive which is democratically accountable to parliament and ultimately to the electorate, not for the courts…
Al-Haq, a Soros-funded Palestinian NGO which goes by the tagline ‘Defending Human Rights’ responded to the judgement, asking if the UK government can’t be challenged in British courts, then “who is the UK government accountable to in matters of international law?”. They claimed a partial victory nevertheless, noting the UK had already suspended some other export licenses for weapons to Israel, asserting Al-Haq had contributed to that decision.
A spokesman for Global Legal Action Network said the defeat at this juncture did not mark the end for their challenge, and called on the UK government to act on its own to choke off the supply of warplanes to Israel.
Preventing the continued export of military materiel to Israel since the October 7 attacks has become a prominent priority for parts of the UK left. Groups like the now well-known Palestine Action have launched direct action campaigns akin to a fifth column, raiding and sabotaging arms factories in Britain in a bid to either slow the delivery of equipment or fully intimidate businesses out of working with Israel at all.
These campaigns have accelerated of late, with Palestine Action itself now facing being declared a banned terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom after its activists broke into an air base an sabotaged two Royal Air Force aircraft. Palestine Action are challenging the ban in court, stating they are not a terrorist group.
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